If You’re Looking For The Hottest Markets Of 2016, Head West

For some cities around the country, selling a home in two weeks seems like it would take a miracle, but in other cities, it has become the norm. By using its Redfin Hot Homes algorithm, Redfin is able to identify homes in a given city that are likely to sell within two weeks. By using the likelihood of a home selling within two weeks as the main measurement, Redfin created a list of the hottest real estate markets for 2016.

The number one city on the list is not exactly surprising, but it also probably isn’t the city you would expect. Denver, Colo., with 69.6 percent of its homes likely to sell within two weeks took the top spot. Seattle (68.5 percent) and Portland (63.9 percent) rounded out the top three. All three of these cities have heated up massively in the past few years. In April 2012, a typical home in Denver sold in 36 days, Portland’s average time to find a buyer was 65 days, and Seattle’s was 50. Now, homes in Denver are on the market for an average of 10 days while Seattle and Portland are both at eight days. Nationally, the number is 47 days.

Conspicuously absent from the top three cities is San Francisco, which is commonly thought of as not just the hottest housing market in America, but one of the hottest markets in the world.

There is a California city in the top five, but it isn’t San Francisco. It isn’t San Jose either. Vallejo, Calif., with 57.6 percent of its homes considered likely to sell within two weeks took the fifth spot on the list. San Jose made the list with 56.4 percent of its homes considered Hot Homes. By this specific measurement, San Francisco did not even make the top twenty. Olympia, Wash., took the twentieth spot with 47.4 percent of its homes considered Hot Homes. By comparison, San Francisco only had 43 percent of its homes expected to sell within two weeks.